Run Far Away
by Tonight.At.Noon
Summary: While visiting her mother's grave on a cold, Autumn day, Caroline comes to realise how different her life is compared to how she once thought it would be. (Completely AU)


**A/N** : As I'm sure many are, I am getting increasingly fed up with the way Julie Plec has been treating one of my all-time favourite couples. They deserve more - we deserve more. So, I am turning to FF to right some of the wrongs I have been noticing. I haven't seen the show in God knows how long, but I have been trying to best to keep up with it (it's hard, when merely reading the plots makes me feel sick to my stomach), and I decided now was the time to take a stand against the poor writing and character portrayal.

I obviously haven't written for these guys before (AKA, this could be an experiment that ends horribly), but I do have some more ideas locked away. And for this story, there are no baby plots. It makes my life considerably easier if I don't have to work around them.

Hope it's to your liking!

* * *

 **Run Far Away**

* * *

She had been a fool. The realisation came to her one morning, in the middle of autumn, while she was sitting beside her mother's grave. It slammed into her, this realisation, like a large, serrated, flaming wrecking ball. The force of it sent her to feet. Blurred her vision and propelled her slow-moving blood to her head. She clutched the stone that read her mother's name, waiting for the wave of strange and ruinous dizziness to pass through her.

Gasping desperately for breath, as it felt like somebody had clutched tightly to her lungs, Caroline's eyes began to fill. A salty, heavy liquid, hot as it crested on to her lower lashes, burning as it trailed down her rose-tinged cheeks, formed and made her dry lips quiver. Long, treacherous moments moved past before she was able to see straight and breathe properly. Despite having been technically dead for however long it had been since Katherine suffocated her with a pillow, the panic of being unable to catch her breath still haunted her.

The chilled wind of mid-November brushed her skin as she righted herself. Stepping back, she stared at the engraved stone, wishing, as she always did, that her mother was there. Comforting her, holding her, telling her what to do.

Caroline Forbes was lost. Lost in a way she had never previously been. And she had only just recognised it.

Suddenly, as her mind drifted to thoughts of her mother, the weight of the glimmering ring on her left hand increased. In a hurry, she snatched it off and shoved it into the pocket of her jeans. It poked against her thigh, but the slight pain was a welcome distraction.

"Mom," she sighed, her eyes once more brimming with tears. Caroline fell to her knees, uncaring of the dirt and wet, crackling leaves. "Mom, what have I done?" She asked the question knowing no answer would come, but she was desperate.

She had been a fool. She had allowed herself to get swept up into a small-town life. She had been cruel to her best friend, forgetful of her dreams to get away from this place. She had accepted a proposal from a man who would always—always, to the end of time—be in love, even if he was unaware of it, with somebody else.

Foolish. There was no other word to describe the decisions she had made over the past few years.

As she kneeled atop the land that encapsulated her mother, her mind drifted to the evening of her eighteenth birthday. There was a pain running through her that night. The poison that lived in Tyler's saliva was gradually smothering the light from her eyes. She remembered the pain. It had been excruciating, enough to make her want to cry out in agony. But she had been weak, too weak to do such a thing.

And then he was there, talking about the joys of birthdays. Explaining to her that a world existed beyond Mystic Falls. His commentary painted glorious images in her half-dead mind of swirling skies, of ancient, crumbling castles and the purple and green hues of the northern lights.

His blood had tasted so crisp. It was like biting down on an apple. She remembered that more than his descriptions of far away places . . . more than anything. The satisfaction that ran through her as her aching fangs ripped through the flesh of his wrist until there was hot metal dancing on her tongue was, in a word, beautiful.

She had been a fool in that time of her life as well. Too stupid to see the splendour and magnificence of the creature that saved her life too many times to count. It may have mattered then that he saved her only because he was the one to put her life in danger, but those sorts of things most certainly didn't matter anymore. Not after everything that happened since he packed his things and left town. Something she should have done as well after he kissed her on the cheek at graduation, whispering about his love for her.

A sharp sting radiated through Caroline as she sat pulling these things to the forefront of her tired mind. He had said so many things to her. Things that made her blood settle at the surface of her cheeks. Things that made her body ache with a desperation and yearning Stefan, poor Stefan, never managed to bring about in her. Things that opened her eyes to a brave new world she had once been entirely blind to.

The path she had chosen all that time ago was not meant for her. It was meant for Elena, for Matt. She was bigger than this town. She had known it when she was young, but things got in the way, as things often do. Elena was lulled into an eternal sleep, her dear mother fell beneath the earth. After these events, the idea of a stale life in Mystic Falls was easy to imagine, so she came to the decision she would remain still for the rest of her never-ending life.

But it was time now to move on from this lacklustre place.

Resolutely, Caroline stood and brushed the wet soil and leaves from her trousers. She swiped at the streaks of tears decorating her face, eyes roaming her mother's gravestone once more. Elizabeth Forbes would be proud of her, she had no doubt.

"I'm going, then," she said. As the words left her, a fluttering serenity rippled throughout her body. It touched the tips of her fingers and snaked around her dully beating heart. Her lips pulled into a smile. "Yeah, I'm going. I am," she repeated, a laugh rising up from the depths of her stomach. "Mom," she whispered, chewing her bottom lip, "I love you."

Though the sky was filled with dense, grey clouds, though a flurry of spitting rain had begun, Caroline felt warm. It was a placebo effect—she was dead, she was not capable of feeling warmth—but she didn't care. She wandered out of the graveyard feeling like she had been revived, prepared to plunge into a new, thrilling existence.

* * *

"You still can't find her?" Bonnie asked, coming into the Salvatore mansion as the sun finally abandoned its place in the sky.

Stefan was pacing by the door. He shook his head in response to Bonnie's question.

"I'm sure she's just hunting," Bonnie suggested calmly.

"You don't know that," Stefan said. "She could be hurt. Something could have attacked her, dragged her away." Stefan closed his mouth. Creating these scenarios in his head wouldn't do any of them any good, especially him.

Bonnie was probably right. Caroline enjoyed a good hunt. But he hadn't known her to hunt at night. Nor did he know her to be the type to not pick up her phone.

"Let's retrace her steps again," Bonnie suggested, coming up to Stefan and taking his arm. She led him to one of the sofas and sat him down, taking a seat beside him. "You two woke up this morning, had breakfast at the bagel shop, went for a walk through the woods . . ."

Stefan nodded. It had been a good day. "Then she said she wanted to visit her mother's grave, so I offered to come with her."

"She said she wanted to go alone," Bonnie continued for him, "and nobody's heard from her since. When was that again?"

Stefan checked his watch and frowned, willing the numbers to come into focus. "Um, she left for the graveyard at two, so nearly four hours ago."

"Okay," Bonnie said. Stefan watched her face scrunch in thought. "Well, Damon's checking the graveyard. He should be back any min"—

Bonnie's sentence was disrupted by the door to the house bursting open. Damon entered, soaked to the skin. He slammed the door and shook his head. Water droplets flew in every direction.

"Blondie is definitely not anywhere near the graveyard," he said bitterly.

The sofa shook and Stefan noticed Bonnie laughing at Damon's appearance.

"I thought water was supposed to melt you," she said through giggles.

"No, you're thinking of witches," Damon corrected snidely. "Get your fairytales right, witch."

Neither Damon nor Bonnie appeared o be taking Caroline's sudden disappearance very seriously, which angered Stefan. Abruptly, he got to his feet and dashed up to his and Caroline's room, banging the door shut behind him. He sucked in a deep breath and went over to the desk that overlooked the back garden. He scanned the contents of the desk quickly, his eyes catching on a folded sheet of paper.

It was as if a light had been snuffed from within him. Written neatly on the page was his name, beside which was the ring he had given Caroline only a couple of months ago. In a panic, he seized the ring and snatched up the paper.

 _Stefan,_

 _This will be quick. Painful, for a little while, but I promise you, you will come to realise, as I have, that I needed to do this. Look, you and I, we aren't right for each other. Deep down, I know you know that. I've just been a placeholder, and I can't live like that anymore. I need to be my own person, doing the things I want to do._

 _Tell Bonnie I've left her a note too. I will miss each of you, but leaving is the best thing for me. Mystic Falls has been stifling me since I transitioned, and it's time I finally took a proper breath. I won't tell you where I am, because chances are I will be moving around and I don't want you to waste your energy._

 _Promise me you won't look for me. If I ever need you, I'll find you._

 _With all my love,_

 _Caroline_

Stefan cried out, loudly enough that Bonnie and Damon came rushing into the room. As Bonnie comforted him, Damon took ahold of the crushed note in his hand.

"Bonnie," Stefan heard Damon say. Then it was Damon by his side as Bonnie scanned Caroline's farewell.

"She's gone?" Bonnie gasped. Stefan thought he could hear her begin to sob.

"She's gone," Damon confirmed, leaving Stefan to his misery in order to wrap his arms around Bonnie's shaking frame.

 _She's gone_ , Stefan mimicked in his mind. _Gone_.

* * *

There was something so stunningly majestic about autumn in New Orleans. No longer were the streets crowded with tourists as they were during the summer months, and each of the college students set on spending the weekends partying in the French Quarter were locked in their dorms and apartments studying for the final exams that were creeping steadily closer. It was serene. Fine weather, the scent of spices and firewood being carried to him by the breeze.

Klaus Mikaelson was almost happy. The thought caught him wholly off guard, but there was a sudden shift in the air and he found himself enjoying it. He sat at a table outside of an ice cream parlour, legs thrown up and crossed. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, allowing the sunshine to soak him in its rays.

Perhaps it was the fact that there had been peace within his city for almost an entire month. Addicted to conflict and war though he was, he sometimes wished for times like these where he could kick up his heels and unwind. His body had been tense for the past few years—it was nice to finally feel the knots loosening.

Of course, he was always on his guard. Hence the flash of alarm that ran through him as his ears picked up the sound of light footsteps nearby. Klaus threw his legs off of the table top and scanned the area. The square he was currently occupying was empty except for an old couple dining outside a restaurant far down the cobblestone road. But he heard the scurrying feet again and he whipped his head in search of their source.

Then, at the end of the square, a body emerged. It walked towards him slowly, and bit by bit its features came into view. Blond hair styled in waves that settled on shoulders, a dress covered in pale pink flowers that drifted about in the steady wind, skin paler than the moon. Red lips, blue eyes, lapis lazuli ring.

 _No._

Klaus stood so abruptly the chair he had been sitting on flew back, landing on the ground with a clang. The creature's eyes blinked at the harsh noise, but Klaus remained still. The air in his lungs evaporated. His dead heart revved within his chest.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," the figure (he refused to call it by its name—it _couldn't_ _be her_ , not really) said. "Sorry." It reprimanded itself immediately, catching its bottom lip between its teeth. "That was a stupid joke."

Its voice was soft. Just like he remembered. His mind was instantly overtaken by a jumbled mess of memories from a time that just two minutes ago seemed entirely out of his reach. He recalled a girl, young in her time as a vampire, lovestruck by a brute (Trevor? No, Tyler. Tyler Lockwood, his experimental mess of a boy.), asking him to save her as her veins blackened in response to the werewolf venom strangling her body. He remembered her again, some considerable time later, _confessing_ to him in the forested area of Mystic Falls. The softness of her breasts, the warmth of her core, haunted both his sleeping and waking hours. Still, after all these years.

But she wasn't standing before him. This was a trick. He was stupid to think he was free to enjoy a pleasant afternoon. Evil was his best playmate. He could not escape it.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" it said, crossing its arms. It rolled its eyes. Whatever it was, it was a spitting image of its source material. "This is so typical of you," it complained. "I travel all this way to see you and you just stand there, snarling."

Had he been snarling?

Klaus relaxed his jaw. "What do you want?"

The figure let out a humourless laugh, tilting its head back. "I want you to acknowledge my presence. I know it's been a while, but you don't have to act like I've come here to kill you."

Klaus raised an eyebrow, his lips sliding into a smirk. "Haven't you?"

"Where the hell would I hide a white oak stake in this dress?"

The hybrid's eyes were immediately drawn to where the creature's pelvis was hidden by the flowing fabric.

"Oh, yes," it said, sarcasm dripping from its tongue. "I shoved a white oak stake up my vagina, came however many freaking miles from Virginia, just to murder you once and for all. How stupid can you be?"

Klaus, overcome by blinding rage, leapt for the monster. He enclosed his hand around its throat and brought his lips to its ear. "You dare call me stupid?" he growled, tightening his grip.

"Klaus," it rasped, scratching at his hand. "Klaus . . . it's me. It's me, I swear. Please, let go."

Shaking his head furiously, Klaus refused to loosen his hold. "No. It can't be. This is a trick."

"It . . . isn't."

"Prove it," he said, staring the creature in the eye. He wracked his brain for a test that would definitively prove the identity of the person's neck he was slowly crushing. "We danced together at the 1920s ball at Mystic Falls High School," he said, the words coming out quick. "What was the colour of your dress?"

The response came instantly. "Red."

Klaus's fingers relaxed. He rushed back several hundred feet as Caroline Forbes rubbed a hand over her reddening throat.

"Caroline," he breathed, taking a half-step forward. "I"—

But he didn't know what to say. _Sorry_ was never good enough when it came to Caroline Forbes.

She was wheezing, fighting for breath, though she hardly needed to. Watching her cough, watching the bruises in the shape of his fingers form across her neck, caused his gut to clench with guilt.

 _Damn_ , he shouted to himself, the expletive full of ire. He thought he had rid himself of these feeble human emotions years ago when he left Mystic Falls. It fit well that the moment the person responsible for making him _feel_ showed up, those same aggravating emotions came back to him in full force.

Klaus rubbed a hand over his tired eyes and drifted in Caroline's direction. "Are you all right?" he implored, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

Caroline straightened. The bruises were already disappearing. It appeared she was well-fed.

"Do people do that a lot?" she asked.

Frowning, Klaus thought for a moment. "What?"

"Disguise themselves as me to get to you?" she clarified. There was a hint of anger in her tone, but it was no more pronounced than usual.

 _Ha, usual_ , he laughed to himself, as if Caroline Forbes had been a regular player in his _usual_ as of late.

In response to her question, Klaus's mind filled with an image of Caroline coming to him, his back bleeding and his body shaking with the fear of death, and clasping his face between her hands only to spit at him and reveal herself as Silas.

"Once," he said, somber.

Though, sometimes, his dreams at night were so vivid he awoke to her image in front of him. But she faded quickly enough. Only once had he reached out hoping to touch her before his fingers slipped through the cold air and her ghost disappeared from sight.

"One time too many," he added, hoping, perhaps, she would take it as half an excuse. "Caroline, what are you doing here?"

He had forgotten how sweet her name tasted on his lips. Like the purest form of honey. Liquid sugar cane.

How could he forget such a thing?

"You choke me half to death then expect _me_ to give an explanation?" she asked, but he recognised the question was rhetorical. "You haven't change a bit."

"I thought you quite enjoyed me the way I am," he challenged. "And besides, love, you're already dead. My hands could do nothing to make you any more dead than you are."

Just as he had hoped, Caroline's rosy-painted mouth tugged to one side. They always played so well together.

"You want to know why I'm here," Caroline said, her mouth falling.

The atmosphere turned serious. Klaus perked his ears. "Yes," he said briskly.

Caroline took four steps in his direction, then one more until she stood directly in front of him. He could hear the blood running in her veins like a siren's song. Smell the metallic stuff as it whirled to her heart.

He had missed her, he realised. How human of him.

Eyes turned down, Caroline began speaking, "You came to me on the evening of my eighteenth birthday and told me there was a whole world out there," she said, bringing to his mind a bittersweet memory. "You told me as we stood in front of one of your paintings that you would take me anywhere I wanted. You said as we danced that the small town life wasn't enough for me." A laugh that sounded like forgiveness bubbled out of her mouth. She moved her eyes from the ground to his. They reflected the clear sky. They made his heart tremble. "Klaus, you told me so many things I wasn't ready to hear. But I'm ready now."

She was confessing again.

He didn't know how to respond.

"What about your life?" he asked. "Mystic Falls is your home."

Caroline shook her head and brought her hands up to grip either side of his black coat. "Not anymore," she insisted. "It's so cliché, but the world is my home now. I want to explore it. Klaus," she said softly, "take me away."

Maybe it was the unexpectedness of it all. Maybe it was his thousand-year-old soul emerging broken piece by broken piece from hibernation. Maybe it was just her—Caroline Forbes, holding on to him like he had often wished she would. Whatever it was, Klaus could not stop himself before he bent his neck and captured her lips in a stuttered kiss. She opened her mouth in response, and as the warmth of her breath trickled into his lungs, he finally allowed his eyes to close.

* * *

She was naked. Not only was she naked, she was naked on Klaus Mikaelson's bed. He stood at the end of the bed, boxer briefs covering his lower half, watching her. Old Caroline would have felt exposed. Whenever she and Stefan went to bed together, she clothed herself as soon as it was over. But she felt safe here, however naive that feeling was.

"What exactly are you doing?" she wondered aloud, sitting up.

"Memorising you," he responded nonchalantly. His eyes didn't move from her. They kept roaming her nude body.

Caroline laid back down and folded her arms behind her head, pushing her breasts out. She turned her head, noticing a large map that covered half of the wall. Red-topped pins were pushed in several spots. She imagined they were all of the places Klaus had been to. He had probably lived in most of the locations. Lucky bastard.

But she had centuries ahead of her. If she was as fortunate as Klaus, maybe she even had millenniums. She would get to those places, clinging to the hand of the monstrous hybrid standing before her.

"I want to go to Greece first," she announced, her gaze focused on the country's collection of islands.

Klaus did not move. He merely smirked that infamous smirk. Those lips made her do crazy things. "Do you now?"

Bobbing her head in confirmation, Caroline looked at Klaus. "Greek history was my favourite course at Whitmore. I want to see where it all happened."

Klaus climbed on to the bed like a great cat. He crept towards her on all fours, the smirk having transitioned into a mischievous smile. Soon, he loomed above her, his hand trailing the length of her side.

"Greece it is, then," he agreed, lowering his head to kiss her.

Caroline sighed, content. Nobody had come rushing to Louisiana in an attempt rescue her yet. Klaus had not asked her about her life between his leaving following their first time in the woods and her running to him.

They could talk of those things later. For now, she just wanted him.

* * *

 **The End**

* * *

 **A/N 2:** And there you have it. If it satisfied your Klaroline craving, I am glad. If not, I am truly sorry. Thanks for reading!


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